View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by University of San Francisco The University of San Francisco USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center Philosophy College of Arts and Sciences 11-2010 Suffering, Pity and Friendship: An Aristotelian Reading of Book 24 of Homer’s Iliad Marjolein Oele University of San Francisco,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: http://repository.usfca.edu/phil Part of the Classics Commons, and the Philosophy Commons Recommended Citation Oele, Marjolein, "Suffering, Pity and Friendship: An Aristotelian Reading of Book 24 of Homer’s Iliad" (2010). Philosophy. Paper 17. http://repository.usfca.edu/phil/17 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the College of Arts and Sciences at USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy by an authorized administrator of USF Scholarship: a digital repository @ Gleeson Library | Geschke Center. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Suffering, Pity and Friendship: An Aristotelian Reading of Book 24 of Homer’s Iliad Marjolein Oele University of San Francisco
[email protected] Book 24 of Homer’s Iliad presents us with one of the most beautiful and chilling scenes of the epic: the scene where Achilles and Priam directly face one another at the point when the suffering (pathos) of each seems to have reached its pinnacle. Achilles’ suffering is centered on the loss of his best friend Patroclus, while the suffering of Priam – although long in the making due to the attack on his city and his family – has reached a new level of despair with the loss of his dearest son Hector.